Bosporan Kingdom

The Bosporan Kingdom was a Greek kingdom in Crimea which existed from 438 BC to 370 AD, with Panticapaeum serving as its capital. During the 7th and 6th centuries BC, Greek adventurers from Miletus in Asia Minor formed several colonies around the Black Sea coast in order to exploit its resources for trade with the wider Greek world. By the beginning of the 5th century BC their government had gravitated from classical Greek democracy to control by a single family, and their leader Satyrus, during the 4th century BC, conquered nearby Greek cities and created a kingdom and a dynasty of rulers. In 63 BC, after being defeated by the Roman general Pompey the Great, Mithridates VI of Pontus fled with a small army from Colchis over the Caucasus to Crimea, and he had his own son Machares (regent of the Bosporus) killed in order to acquire the throne for himself. In 63 BC, Pharnaces II, Mithridates' youngest son, led a rebellion against his father with help from Roman exiles, and Mithridates withdrew to the citadel in Panticapaeum and committed suicide. In 47 BC, the Roman general Julius Caesar defeated Pharnaces at the Battle of Zela, and he reduced the kingdom to a Roman client state. Under the Roman Empire, the Bosporan Kingdom was protected by Roman garrisons, and a Jewish diaspora community developed in the Crimea after the 2nd century AD. During the 250s AD, the Goths seized Bosporan shipping and raided the shores of Anatolia, and the kingdom was overrun by the Huns in 370 AD.